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ziq wrote

Reply to comment by !deleted1665 in Should we own pets? by betterletter

Cats are native to where I live, they've been here forever - the fossil records for domestic cats go back further here than anywhere in the world, meaning the domestic cat likely first originated here in ancient times.

Unlike dogs, cats domesticated themselves because forming bonds with humans was beneficial to them. All my cats were 2 week old wild kittens who were abandoned by their mothers and needed someone to feed them.

There's an adult cat that is currently trying to domesticate himself to me but my other cats won't let him. He keeps crying out to me but when I go outside he runs. He killed and ate both my pet chickens the other day, and then the very next night he was again crying for me to feed him. Cats are really entitled.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

Unlike dogs, cats domesticated themselves because forming bonds with humans was beneficial to them. All my cats were 2 week old wild kittens who were abandoned by their mothers and needed someone to feed them.

There's a decent theory that dogs also domesticated themselves. Basically it goes that there were likely wolf packs that became parasitic on hunter-gatherer groups for scraps, and over time the less violent ones, the more human-friendly ones were tolerated and evolved into dogs that way.
Sounds pretty plausible to me, especially considering how hard it has been for people who have tried to breed wolves.

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ziq wrote

Hunter to scavenger to dependent.

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